Seashore
December 19, 2023
The 2023 Seashore Professional Tour season was a protracted and winding and great and wacky one. New hierarchies have been established — hiya, Ana Patricia and Duda — and previous ones damaged down, or a minimum of put into query. Who, for instance, is the perfect males’s group on the planet? Is it nonetheless Norway, they of eight medals in 9 occasions, or is it the World Champion Czech Republic…or the Seashore Professional Tour Finals claiming Swedes, with their Tour main 4 gold medals?
For the primary time since 2018, we genuinely don’t know.
Younger expertise burst onto the scene, not least of all Miles Partain, the 21-year-old Jedi returning the pressure to USA Volleyball. Three medals did he and Andy Benesh win, all at Elite16 tournaments, together with a gold in Gstaad. Mixed with the six medals received by David Ahman and one other two from Italian sensation Valentina Gottardi, 11 medals have been received by 21-year-olds.
The previous guard, too, held up simply advantageous. The primary match of the season, in La Paz? Received by 41-year-old Pablo Herrera, whose first win got here in 2004. When Partain was 3.
Comebacks, too, have been made. Three-time Olympian Chen Xue of China thought she may need to retire within the wake of the Tokyo Olympic Video games. After a profitable surgical procedure and a reinvigoration, she returned to the Seashore Professional Tour on the Itapema Problem, profitable gold in her first occasion again along with her previous however new associate, Xinyi Xia.
Dutch defender Yorick de Groot, too, made a formidable comeback. He was by no means in peril of retiring, however a hernia stored him out of a lot of the 2022 season. How’d he do in his return with Stefan Boermans? A bronze medal in La Paz.
Comebacks have been made on the courtroom as nicely. Twice, groups discovered themselves down 8-14 within the third set. Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles marched all the best way again within the Montreal Elite16 quarterfinals in opposition to Duda and Ana Patricia, gorgeous the world No. 1 on their strategy to a silver medal. Austrians Moritz Pristauz and Robin Seidl, too, stared down the barrel of an 8-14 deficit within the Goa Problem finals. No drawback: They might win 17-15, claiming their first of two gold medals on the season.
Certainly, it has been as unpredictable 12 months as one might hope.
Yet one more than deserving of post-season awards, which have been halted in 2020 on the FIVB and by no means revived till now.
The method for these awards was a week-long nomination course of, the place athletes within the Worldwide Seashore Volleyball Gamers Affiliation might nominate gamers for every class. The highest 4 most-nominated gamers have been then voted on in a several-week voting interval. Practically 100 of the highest gamers on the Seashore Professional Tour nominated and subsequently voted for the next outcomes.
Males’s 2023 Seashore Professional Tour Gamers Awards
MVP: Ondrej Perusic
Honorable point out: David Ahman, Anders Mol, Miles Partain
An indicator of any athlete named the Most Useful of their respective sport is commonly their capacity to be nominated throughout all kinds of classes. No participant suits that mildew greater than Ondrej Perusic. The Czech Republic defender was nominated for Most Useful, Greatest Defender, Greatest Offensive Participant, Greatest Server, and, as a result of he’s additionally among the finest people on the seaside, was a finalist for the Sportsmanship Award. Wealthy Lambourne known as it “Jordanesc” when he was knowledgeable of the breadth of Perusic’s nominations.
They make sense. All of them. Perusic makes the tough look simple and the same old performs look mundane. Not solely was he probably the most efficient defensive gamers on the planet, however his capacity to transition out of a dig – a remarkably excessive share of which have been proper into the awaiting palms of David Schweiner – made him probably the most harmful on offense as nicely. No participant, as decided by his friends, was higher in 2023 than Ondrej Perusic.
BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER: Ondrej Perusic
Honorable point out: David Ahman, Yorick de Groot, Ahmed Tijan
The way in which Ondrej Perusic performs protection reminds one of many method during which Tim Duncan performed basketball, Ichiro Suzuki baseball, Sergio Garcia golf: It regarded simple. Easy. It isn’t, in fact, simple to dig the warmth of Anders Mol, or resolve the vexing offense of Sweden, or chase down the pictures of an Adrian Carambula. But Perusic makes it look ho-hum, constantly discovering himself in the correct place on the proper time, a melding of mind and physique that’s distinctive virtually completely to him – a melding that had him named the Greatest Defensive Participant of 2023.
BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER: Anders Mol
Honorable point out: David Ahman, Ondrej Perusic, Robert Meeuwsen
This class was the closest of any, determined by a single vote between Anders Mol and Sweden’s David Ahman. Had the FIVB or Volleyball World continued the awards after the 2019 season, it’s attainable Mol would have received in 2020, 2021, 2022 and once more in 2023. He’s that good. In that span of six seasons, groups have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink on the Norwegian blocker. Seeing as he’s but once more voted the Greatest Offensive Participant, an answer has but to be discovered. Anders Mol was, is, and certain might be once more, the Greatest Offensive Participant.
BEST BLOCKER: Anders Mol
Honorable point out: David Schweiner, Andre Loyola, Andy Benesh
When Anders Mol retires, this award might be named after him. There isn’t any doubt that had the awards been sustained all through the 2020-2022 seasons, he’d have been the overwhelming winner, as he was once more in 2023. The actual fact is that no person on the planet has ever blocked like Mol, and neither ought to anyone even hassle making an attempt. What he’s in a position to do can’t be taught, replicated, and even tried to any profitable diploma. He stands alone as the best blocker of this technology, and, if his trajectory stays the course, will quickly stand alone as the best blocker of all time.
For now, he’s merely the 2023 Greatest Blocker, the third 12 months during which he has taken dwelling that honor.
BEST SERVER: Evandro Goncalves
Honorable point out: Anders Mol, Adrian Gavira, Ondrej Perusic
Like Anders Mol for blocking, the Greatest Server award will at some point turn out to be The Evandro Award. The Brazilian has now been named the Greatest Server in six totally different seasons, all in a row spanning from 2015-2023. His soar serve is a Marvel of the Seashore Volleyball World, a bullet for which there isn’t a protecting vest, essentially the most enviable weapon on the sand, one that may produce seven-point runs at occasions. So long as he’s serving volleyballs, that is Evandro’s award to lose.
MOST IMPROVED: Miles Partain
Honorable point out: Sam Cottafava, Andy Benesh, Zach Schubert
Miles Partain put the world on discover when he made his debut on the Seashore Professional Tour late within the 2022 season with Andy Benesh. Three occasions did he play, ending fifth in his first, at a Problem within the Maldives, profitable his second at a Problem in Dubai, and ending top-10 once more in Dubai regardless of enjoying on a hobbled ankle. Newbie’s luck? No such factor with Partain. The 21-year-old delivered in his first full-time season, profitable three Elite16 medals – bronze in Ostrava, gold in Gstaad, silver in Montreal – and changing into the one USA group to beat Anders Mol and Christian Sorum a number of occasions. Partain and Benesh, who was second in voting for Most Improved, are actually virtually assured a spot within the Paris Olympic Video games. The one query with this group, and Partain specifically: How significantly better can they get with one other 12 months of expertise?
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Miles Partain
Honorable point out: Thomas Hodges, Teo Rotar, Joaquin Bello
This was the class of the most important margin of victory. With all due respect to Australian bomber Thomas Hodges, rising French blocker Teo Rotar, and leaping bean of an English blocker in Joaquin Bello, the world knew no participant was in the identical tier as Miles Partain when it got here to rookies, they usually responded as such. Partain, at simply 21 years previous, confirmed roughly zero indicators of youth, oftentimes main his 28-year-old associate, Andy Benesh, in occasions of bother. As Ty Loomis as soon as predicted throughout the 2020 AVP Champions Cup: Miles Partain could be the younger Jedi returning the pressure to USA Volleyball.
He’s doing simply that.
SPORTSMANSHIP: Ondrej Perusic
Honorable point out: Paolo Nicolai, Aleksandrs Samoilovs, Christian Sorum
Two unimaginable anecdotes to the real sportsmanship of Ondrej Perusic: He was the one who lobbied for this to be a class of award, as a result of it’s a component of the sport that’s vital to him. When the votes have been coming in, he despatched me a message, requesting me to take away one vote from his tally in each class during which he was nominated, as a result of somebody who wasn’t a participant obtained ahold of the shape and voted for him.
Not that it might have made a distinction. He received by a landslide, with solely Italian nice Paolo Nicolai coming comparatively shut.
The Greatest Defensive Participant AND Most Useful can be the perfect sportsman?
Ondrej Perusic could as nicely be the 2023 Man of the Yr.
TEAM OF THE YEAR: Ondrej Perusic, David Schweiner, Czech Republic
Honorable point out: David Ahman, Jonatan Hellvig; Anders Mol, Christian Sorum; Andy Benesh, Miles Partain
The breakthrough many see got here on the game’s greatest stage, when Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner received the World Championships, gorgeous Anders Mol and Christian Sorum within the quarterfinals and heading off a spectacular comeback from Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig within the finals. In truth, the breakthrough got here six months prior, on the Uberlandia Elite16. It was in Brazil that the Czechs, so typically the bridesmaid to the Norwegian gold medal coronation, upset Mol and Sorum, ending an eight-match dropping streak and claiming the primary of a team-best three gold medals.
There’s now, for the primary time since 2018, real debate over who lays declare to the perfect males’s group on the planet. Is it the Czechs, the World Champs? Or Norway, with seven medals in 9 occasions and the No. 1 rating? Or the Swedes, with extra gold medals this season than every other?
The votes say that in 2023, the reply to that unsolvable riddle is Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner.
Girls’s 2023 Seashore Professional Tour Gamers Awards
MVP: Duda Lisboa
Honorable point out: Kelly Cheng, Kristen Nuss, Cinja Tillmann
Oftentimes in sports activities, there’s a energy battle in figuring out who the Subsequent Large Factor is when one who’s arguably the best of all-time both retires or reduces enjoying. Such was not the case in seaside volleyball. When Kerri Walsh Jennings’ schedule was lowered, to zero tournaments up to now two years, there was little debate amongst gamers as to who the brand new No. 1 was: Duda Lisboa.
A sensation as a teen, the Brazilian was voted Most Excellent in 2018 and 2019. Now 25, Duda is nearing the prime of her profession, and she or he’s enjoying as such. Alongside Ana Patricia Silva, Duda received 9 medals in 11 occasions, piling up an absurd quantity of factors in each the world and Olympic rankings. She is, without delay, arguably the Greatest Offensive Participant, Greatest Server, and Greatest Defensive Participant.
After profitable bronze on the Seashore Professional Tour Finals, she was requested if she ever will get bored with enjoying seaside volleyball. She smiled a shy and endearing smile, shook her head, and stated “No, to me, seaside volleyball is particular.”
And the game is made all of the extra particular by having her in it.
BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER: Kristen Nuss
Honorable point out: Duda, Cinja Tillmann, Sara Hughes
In Tlaxcala, Mexico, for the World Championships, anytime Kristen Nuss touched the ball, the group would serenade her with chants of “Chaparrita,” which, I used to be instructed by our producer, is the endearing means of calling somebody a shorty in Spanish. It’s not tough to see why she received the adoration of the group (and any crowd, for that matter). Nuss led the match in digs and digs per match, simply as she would do in Doha throughout a gold medal run on the Seashore Professional Tour Finals. No participant on the planet digs as many balls as Nuss, and on high of that, her management makes practically each dig settable, an in-system alternative for a degree in transition. It’s why Nuss and Taryn Kloth can climate slumpy offensive days – such because the Seashore Professional Tour Finals – and nonetheless win the match on 5 straight sweeps.
The Chaparrita reigns supreme.
BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER: Ana Patricia Silva
Honorable point out: Kelly Cheng, Duda, Valentina Gottardi
Ana Patricia Silva is a kind of uncommon gamers who renders most each opposing protection helpless. How is one purported to constantly cease a participant who can put a dent within the earth with a pointy angle swing and, on the subsequent play, drop a deft line roll simply overtop the block and in entrance of the defender? Such is the complete spectrum of Ana Patricia’s offense, one with seemingly no holes. Her friends acknowledged as a lot, naming her the 2023 Offensive Participant of the Yr.
BEST BLOCKER: Brandie Wilkerson
Honorable point out: Ana Patricia, Kelly Cheng, Taryn Kloth
Like her male counterpart, Anders Mol, generally it appears as if Brandie Wilkerson has been dropped off on earth from one other planet. The performs she makes with stunning regularity typically verge into the realm of the unreal, sending commentators – myself included – into marvel: “Did she simply try this?”
She will swat a brief line as if it have been Melissa Humana-Paredes setting her, roof a pointy angle swing in a fashion that has the ball touchdown earlier than both hitter or blocker, flip and make a play on a shot as cellular and sleek and coordinated as any defender. The actual challenge with a blocker equivalent to Wilkerson is that there isn’t a means of simulating that sort of block; you could merely navigate it in actual time, understanding that prime strains should be greater, sharp swings sharper, crisp contacts crisper – or it’s coming again in your facet of the courtroom.
For all of these causes, and dozens extra, Brandie Wilkerson is your 2023 Blocker of the Yr.
BEST SERVER: Valentina Gottardi
Honorable point out: Duda, Taliqua Clancy, Anastasija Samoilova
It’s surprisingly simple to pinpoint the precise day, time, and match during which Valentina Gottardi established herself is without doubt one of the finest servers on the planet. Within the quarterfinals of the Tepic Elite16 – an occasion during which Gottardi and Marta Menegatti needed to come out of the qualifier – the 21-year-old blocker aced Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson 5 occasions.
Within the first set.
Her float serve is a quick, flat missile, a dancing satan that might earn her ace after ace and untold variety of out of system passes all through the course of the season – and that might earn her the 2023 Server of the Yr.
MOST IMPROVED: Valentina Gottardi
Honorable point out: Cija Tillmann, Louisa Lippmann, Aine Raupelyte
At simply 20 years previous, Valentina Gottardi burst onto the scene halfway by means of the 2022 season, a participant who had performed largely Futures and One Star tournaments. Then got here World Champs, and essentially the most surprising run into the quarterfinals. She had an unlimited arm, large serve, and what seemed to be an unshakable confidence.
However was she for actual? Was she a taking pictures star, blazing vibrant for a quick second? Or was this play sustainable?
Any questions on Gottardi have been answered after which answered once more in 2023. The now-21-year-old and the veteran Menegatti completed the 12 months ranked No. 10 on the planet, with two Elite16 semifinals, in Tepic and Paris, and a pair of Problem medals, gold in Saquarema and silver in Edmonton.
The one query remaining: How good can she be come 2024?
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Valentina Gottardi
Honorable point out: Julia Scoles, Louisa Lippmann, Dorina Klinger
It’s a testomony to only how sensational Valentina Gottardi’s rookie season was given the thick competitors she had for Rookie of the Yr. Julia Scoles was incredible, engaging in one thing even Gottardi couldn’t: Making an Elite16 semifinal. Louisa Lippmann was downright horrifying on the web and the service line, asserting herself at will in sure matches, generally even full tournaments. And Dorina Klinger established herself, along with her sister Ronja defending behind her, as a darkish horse in practically each match.
And it was Gottardi who got here out on high.
Boding nicely for the Italian Federation as a complete is that Gottardi has all of the requisite instruments to construct a robust basis for your entire nation: A proficient blocker with a depraved serve who units nicely and is already as terminal as anybody on the planet offensively. What Duda is for Brazil is what Gottardi might nicely be for Italy.
SPORTSMANSHIP: Melissa Humana-Paredes
Honorable point out: Agatha, Laura Ludwig, Taryn Kloth
Is there a participant on the entire of the Seashore Professional Tour — for that matter, the entire world — with a extra contagious pleasure than Melissa Humana-Paredes? The Canadian defender brims with it, typically spilling over into her play on the courtroom and, as acknowledged by her friends, her character off it. At all times prepared with a smile, all the time prepared with the kindest demeanor, all the time a vibrant gentle in a sport that generally wants one, Melissa Humana-Paredes is the Sportswoman of the Yr.
TEAM OF THE YEAR: Ana Patricia, Duda
Honorable point out: Kelly Cheng, Sara Hughes; Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth
This was the one class during which solely three groups or people have been nominated. That’s how far forward these three have been. And Ana Patricia and Duda established a niche practically the equal over Cheng and Hughes and Nuss and Kloth, even with the 2 greatest tournaments – World Champs, Seashore Professional Tour Finals – going to the latter two groups. The Brazilians received medals in 9 of 11 occasions, 10 of 12 when together with a gold on the PanAmerican Video games. Their 87 % profitable share was a full 12 over Nuss and Kloth and 18 above Cheng and Hughes. The one purpose they weren’t the unanimous victors was as a result of they didn’t win the 12 months’s main tournaments, settling for a ho-hum silver at World Champs and bronze on the Seashore Professional Tour Finals.
If settling for something however gold produces a “What occurred?” response, that’s an indicator of an elite group.
On this case, that’s an indicator of the 2023 Crew of the Yr.
EVENT OF THE YEAR: World Championships
Honorable point out: Ostrava Elite16, Royal King and Queen of the Court docket Championships, Chiang Mai Problem
If there’s one factor all of us might have realized from this 2023 season, it’s this: Mexico does seaside volleyball proper. From the opening Problem occasion in La Paz – gorgeous, packed, brimming with vitality – to the World Championships in Tlaxcala, the nation has gotten the near-unanimous approval from the gamers. Followers, as was the case for the World Championships, present up within the tens of 1000’s, they usually don’t simply present up. They dance. They sing. They clobber cervezas and ask for extra, pronto por favor. They get loud for the house group, making forgettable blowouts awfully memorable. They undertake new favorites, equivalent to Kristen Nuss, who was bestowed the nickname “chaparrita,” or Taryn Kloth, who by some means left Mexico with the hilarious new moniker, “Barbie lady.” Tlaxcala delivered an environment befitting a serious match, the place the gamers navigated half-hour lengthy blended zone autograph and interview periods, the place the media, for as soon as, swarmed post-match. The one draw back was a rash of meals poisoning that impacted practically 75 % of the sector, and that isn’t an insignificant draw back. However telling of how particular the occasion was is that, even with so many gamers scuffling with meals poisoning, 60 % of them nonetheless voted for the World Championships because the 2023 Occasion of the Yr.